Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Buying American, Losing America / Politics / US Economy

By: Dan_Steinbock

Recently, President Trump signed his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order. Ironically, while the stated goal is to put “America First,” the White House may actually subsidize old industries and undermine innovation.

Recently, President Trump traveled to Wisconsin to sign the “Buy American, Hire American” executive order, which seeks to crack down on fraud and abuse of the skilled worker (H-1B) visa program.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Real Reason Trump Why Reversed His Stance On NATO, China, and Mexico / Politics / US Politics

By: John_Mauldin

By Allison Fedirka Donald Trump has recently reversed his stance on a number of key foreign policy issues: NATO, Russia, China, and Mexico. From a geopolitical perspective, Trump’s remarks validated that limitations exist in the real world—even for the US president.

These limitations explain why he has backtracked on some of his key campaign promises.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

What A War With North Korea Would Look Like / Politics / North Korea

By: John_Mauldin

BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : The possibility of war between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States has recently increased. It is necessary to consider what such a war might look like.

I use the term war rather than merely American attacks on North Korean nuclear and missile program facilities. We have to consider the possibility of North Korea’s response and a more extended conflict.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Pensions Are On The Way Out But Retirement Funds Are Not Working Either / Personal_Finance / Pensions & Retirement

By: John_Mauldin

US law provides for many kinds of tax-advantaged retirement plans. They fall into two broad groups: defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution (DC) plans.

Defined-benefit plans are mostly the old-style pensions. They came with a gold watch and ensured you some level of benefit for the rest of your life.

Your employer would invest part of your compensation in the plan, based on some formula. In some cases, you, the worker, might have added more money to the pot.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Frank Holmes : Gold Could Hit $1,500 in 2017 Amid Imbalances & Weak Supply / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: MoneyMetals

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.

Coming up Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors joins me to share his thoughts on Trump’s first 100 days, the resetting that’s going on the global political front and gives what he sees as a very realistic price target for gold before the end of the year. Be sure to stick around for a fantastic interview with Frank Holmes, coming up after this week’s market update.

Precious metals markets are putting in a mixed performance this week as gold prices hold above their breakout level from the prior week. Spot gold currently comes in at $1,287 an ounce, essentially unchanged on the week.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Even “Father of Logic” Thought That Gold Makes the Best Money in the World / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: HAA

Shannara Johnson : In the wee hours of March 27, plucky thieves stole one of the world’s largest gold coins, a 221-pound colossus named the “Big Maple Leaf” from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany.

The coin, which takes two to three strong men to carry, had a face value of $1 million, but at current market prices is worth around $4.5 million.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

3 Reasons Why “Spring Forward, Fall Back” Also Applies To Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: HAA

Stephen McBride : Year to date, the price of gold is up 12%. This is not unusual: the yellow metal also had a strong start into 2016, rising 18% over the same period.

So is there a seasonal pattern to the gold price? To answer that question, we dissected gold’s performance dating back to 1975 and identified some trends investors can use to their advantage.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

SPX may be Aiming at the Cycle Top Resistance / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

Yesterday I asked the question, “Will the SPX reverse in hour 86?” We got our answer as SPX rallied through the rest of the day. Interestingly enough, the rally thus far took 90 hours. 90.3 is divisible by 4.3 and also happens to be 12.9 days. This may be a good spot for a reversal.

SPX futures are positive this morning, but The corrective Wave appears to be nearly finished. An additional probe to the 2-hour cycle Top at 2384.51 may do the job.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Walmart Stock Extending Higher - Elliott Wave Trend Forecast / Companies / Retail Sector

By: ElliottWave-Forecast

Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is the world’s largest company by revenue as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.3 million employees. It’s an American multinational retailing corporation that operates as a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Despite being the biggest physical retailer in the world, Wal-Mart is still trailing back in e-commerce business as there is increased competition from online retailers in particular Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) which continues to gain market share as the world is merging to online shopping.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Google Panics and KILLS YouTube to Appease Mainstream Media and Corporate Advertisers / Companies / Google

By: Nadeem_Walayat

March's advertisers revolt that saw the mainstream media and corporations apparently suddenly woke up to the fact that some of their ads were appearing against extremist videos, threatened to pull their ads from Google the owner of Youtube, has literally sent the Tek giant into a panic. A case of slash and burning Youtube of ad placements on every topic that could potentially be perceived as not being advertiser friendly, and this is not just the usual suspects of guns, violence and border line criminality, but comedy, satire, reviews, politics, even finance amongst many other topics are taking a major hit as google pulls their ad revenue plug resulting in many channels seeing more than 99% of their earnings disappear over night, all to placate the advertisers.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Gold Price Is 1% Shy of Ripping Higher / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: The_Gold_Report

Precious metals are on the verge of a legendary move, says Lior Gantz, editor of Wealth Research Group, and details the indicators he watches for.

With the first round of the French elections over and a potential beginning of the end for the Eurozone might be within sight, this is only one of the macro-political events that are causing gold prices to be within 1% of shuttering its 10-year resistance level.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

US Treasury Bond Yields / Interest-Rates / US Bonds

By: Ed_Carlson

TNX – the yield on the 10yr US Treasury note -  gained 0.22% last week closing at 22.37 but 14-day RSI remains below its own 20-dma; bearish. The break of support at 23.35 (now resistance) has opened a door for a return to 20.00.

The monthly chart below shows how the long-term trend line has turned back the rally in TNX on numerous occasions. However, as the monthly Coppock Curve failed to confirm the 2012 low during the 2016 test of that low we’ve probably seen the low of the +30yr decline in interest rates.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Exchange-Traded Funds Make Decisions Easy / Stock-Markets / Exchange Traded Funds

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Stock Market Forecast Big Picture: The broad stock market is working through a more complex corrective price pattern. My recent forecast, as displayed in the chart below, indicates that the next leg up is toward 2500.  The market may be about to start a larger A-B-C correction to test the 2300 level to fully cleanse itself, before starting the next leg up. But overall, the SPX is very bullish long-term.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Trump Is Among The Institutionally Weakest National Leaders In The World / Politics / US Politics

By: John_Mauldin

By George Friedman : During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump advocated for a more disengaged US foreign policy. Involvement in the world would be limited to actions in the interest of the United States.

On the surface, this was not an irrational argument. American involvement—chiefly militarily—has not yielded the outcomes the US hoped for in recent years.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

3 Maps That Explain the Geopolitics of Nuclear Weapons / Politics / Nuclear Weapons

By: John_Mauldin

BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : North Korea has received a lot of focus due to a recent missile test and the expectation of another nuclear test. It is a poor country whose nuclear program has allowed it to punch above its weight internationally. This has also forced superpowers to approach it with great caution.

Nuclear bombs are in their own category of weapon. They are useful in that they deter aggression. The potential for massive destruction on both sides forces countries to rethink moves that may threaten an adversary’s national security interests.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Fed Drops MOAB on Wall Street, Swamp Creatures Sack D.C. / Politics / US Politics

By: Michael_Pento

Wall Street and our central bank are in for a rude awakening very soon! The idea that the US economy is on stable footing and about to experience a surge in growth is ridiculous. Hence, the consensus that the Fed can normalize interest rates and its balance sheet is nothing short of a bad joke...and it's on them.

For starters, the government's fiscal deficit for the month of March came in at $176.2 billion, which means the deficit 6 months into fiscal 2017 is $526.9 billion and running 15% over last year. If not for the calendar timing of receipts and payments, our government's deficit would be a year-to-date $564.0 billion or 23% above last year. In addition, there was an 18% decline in corporate income tax collection. We all know there was no corporate tax reform passed. So the credible conclusion must be reached that corporations are not growing there profits...they are actually shrinking.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Morrisons Frozen Fish 1/3rd Frozen Water? / ConsumerWatch / Retail Sector

By: HGR

The super market giants are playing their customers for fools, from Shrinkflation to dropping the number of items in multi packs, any devious trick in the book is being pulled to get one over their customers, a couple of months ago it was the BBC revealing Tesco's fake shelf prices that fail to convert at the checkouts. Whilst in this video test reveals that Morrisons frozen fish are actually 1/3rd frozen water! Which makes a mockery of the price labels when comparing store brands with the better quality brands such as Birds eye.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Risk on Stock Market French Election Euphoria / Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

SPX futures went euphorically higher as the DAX made an all-time high this morning.

Currently the level of the SPX futs are near 2375.00. SPX is in the 84th hour of its Cycle which began at 2378.36. If the current EW reading is correct, it should reverse in the next three hours without overcoming its April 5 high.

Last Thursday, Bloomberg noted, “European Central Bank officials signaled that their liquidity facilities remain available to counter any market tension that may arise in the aftermath of France’s presidential election, the first round of which takes place Sunday.”

Monday, April 24, 2017

Mind the Mortgage Gap - High LTV Interest Rates Soar / Housing-Market / Mortgages

By: MoneyFacts

Research from Moneyfacts.co.uk reveals that despite average mortgage rates falling across the market, the gap between the 60% loan-to-value (LTV) bracket and the highest LTV band (95%) has expanded. Statistics show the divergence has grown by 0.31% in just six months.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Fear Campaign Against Americans Continues Nuclear Attack Drills in New York City / Politics / Nuclear Weapons

By: Jeff_Berwick

In many ways, you have to feel bad for Americans. They have been on the receiving end of constant fear propaganda for decades.

Just look back to the 50’s with the “Duck & Cover” fear campaign as one example.

Getting malleable young minds to cower under their desks in their government indoctrination camps, as though that would somehow protect them from a nuclear blast, shows that it has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with fear.